Stopping Calibre from resorting source docs

[MacEachaidh]

Greetings all,
Maybe I'm being really dumb here (definitely possible!), but I've got a real stumbling block between how Calibre seems to work and how I like to manage my files that is making things difficult, and I can't see what I'm maybe misunderstanding. I'd really appreciate some insights.

Let me explain: On my storage drive, I have books sorted into folders and then sub-folders - primary folders by genre, then within that by author, then within that by either titles alphabetically or publication year where reading sequence is important.

I'm new to Calibre, but I'm finding that it keeps wanting to make its own collection and arrangement of all the files. Whether I tell it to make the database in an established folder or in a new, unpopulated one, Calibre wants to make a new copy of every single book file, putting each one into a separate folder at the same hierarchical level. Some of the folders are named according to just the book title, and some by a combination of the book title and the author's name - there doesn't seem to be any consistent pattern, in my experience - and all of the folder titles and file names are truncated.

It seems to mean that none of the books is easily managed except through the Calibre interface itself, and their titles and place in any ordered scheme only make sense from within Calibre, not externally through, say, Windows' Explorer.

I'm most interested in Calibre for its ability to republish other formats into ePub. I can see that's only a fraction of its capabilities, but I'm happier being able to see at a glance in Explorer what books I have, and to drag and drop them that way onto my Story when I want them. But with Calibre effectively obscuring this access to the files, doesn't it mean that, if I convert or modify one of the documents, to have a copy back in my original sorted folders I have to find the file in its renamed Calibre-generated folder and copy it back to the other copy of the documents. And it means having two copies of everything, doesn't it?

So, genuine question:
What have I missed? What am I not understanding?
Or is it simply that Calibre - for all its abilities - is not a tool that accommodates the way I prefer to manage my files?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[speakingtohe]

Calibre is very versatile but it msut have it's own folder system. It unique folders for each copy of a book unless you want to merge them which often you do but sometimes you don't
There are work-arounds for pretty much every scenario though.
For yourself you could use the save to disc option to save them back to your original folder and then delete all formats from Calibre to avoid duplicates.
Calibre does delete to the recycle bin so you might want to keep an eye on that.
It really is a wonderful program and has many features that you never thought you would want but soon can't live without

[MacEachaidh]

Thanks for your reply, speakingtohe.

I was cautious in my post because I didn't want to give the impression I was rubbishing the software - I'm really not. It's just, for my fairly unadventurous needs, it's a bit like a 300-kilogram sledge hammer when all I want to do is shell a peanut.

And I know the Calibre forum may not be the place to ask this, but ... do you have any suggestions for what software I should use instead, if I just want to convert my DOCs and RTFs and PDfs to ePUB ?

[itimpi]

You could look up the Calibre command line interface options in the Calibre User Guide (in particular ebook-convert). When using the Command line interface you specify the input and output files explicitly so bypass the GUI completely. This may be more suitable for your needs?

You mentioned that the Calibre folder structure did not make seem to be consistent. It should always be of the form author/book/. You have probably got calibre set to look at the metadata in the book file (it can be derived from the filename) - and this is not set correctly which is why you get strange folder.

However as you mentioned, if using Calibre to manage your ebooks you probably should be accessing the eBooks via the GUI interface, and treating the calibre library as a "black box" so that the file structure is not accessed directly.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

And I know the Calibre forum may not be the place to ask this, but ... do you have any suggestions for what software I should use instead, if I just want to convert my DOCs and RTFs and PDfs to ePUB ?

I looked around and there didn't seem to be anything nearly as flexible as Calibre for conversion. Like you, I came here for Calibre's ability to convert. I stayed with Calibre, because I kept finding useful features, and finally decided to move my entire library into Calibre. It can be a big job, so if all you want is the ability to convert, look into the command line ebook-convert program. Calibre is written in separate modules, and you can use them independently, so if all you want is its conversion capabilities, it's designed to do that. Read this.

[MacEachaidh]

Wow, that sounds like a great idea, itimpi. I really appreciate your help - thanks!

All of this is really a workaround to deficiencies in the iRiver Story's current OS - ePUB is the only file format it adequately supports at the moment - it will open the others, but bluntly it is faulty in the way it displays and handles them - so I'm having to go through all this just so i can read documents and the like I'm sent to read. You can probably understand I didn't want to get into someone else's file management system as well, no matter how powerful and well-designed it is!

Anyway. I'm not sure why I'm getting what appear to me as inconsistencies in the file naming with Calibre - as I said, I'm new to it, so I may well have done something with consequences I didn't anticipate in setting up the preferences. But if the command-line utility lets me side-step all that, that sounds ideal.

Thanks again for your help, itimpi and speakingtohe.
And now Starson17 - thanks !

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

You can probably understand I didn't want to get into someone else's file management system as well, no matter how powerful and well-designed it is!

Just so you know, besides conversion and ebook management, Calibre has some really great features that are less than obvious.

One favorite is the ability to create new ebooks from online magazines, blogs and websites. Scientific American, Discover Magazine, Science News, Freakonomics, New Yorker, New York Times, a few hundred comics, etc. are some of my favorites.

A second feature for web-enabled readers is the ability to access all of your ebooks remotely on the content server. I regularly access my books while on the road, in waiting rooms, etc. via my phone and wifi PDA

[MacEachaidh]

They are definitely worth pointing out, Starson17. I appreciate your doing that.

At the moment, I just want to be able to read the books/documents I already have and whittle down my "to-read" list. But I'm sure my interest in and exploration of Calibre's capabilities will grow, given time

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by itimpi

You could look up the Calibre command line interface options in the Calibre User Guide (in particular ebook-convert). When using the Command line interface you specify the input and output files explicitly so bypass the GUI completely. This may be more suitable for your needs?

I use it in this way. I only use command line (ebook-convert y edit-meta), because these features work VERY WELL, but I'm not interested in all its GUI features. For me, it's a very good union

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

At the moment, I just want to be able to read the books/documents I already have e and whittle down my "to-read" list.

I certainly understand that. For me, however, three things happened when I moved my books into Calibre.

First, my "to-read" list improved. I had far better indexed and sorted access to my books, so I could find books I wanted to read more than other books at the top of my list. I also found lots of hidden gems in my collection.

Second, I gained all-the-time online access to my books through the content server, so it was easier to quickly grab a book of interest to me. I'd be reading naval fiction and then grab one of my Google Book conversions from 1805 where I could read about the proper installation of a "cross cat-harpin" on a square-rigger.

Finally, There was a class of reading material - magazines, newspapers and the like that are online, but that I had not been able to read on my e-reader. These items change daily or weekly, so they aren't really on the same "to-read"list as novels. Once Calibre converted these items to ebooks, they became much more accessible to me than my paper copies or the web version that needed to be read through a web browser.

[hnoto]

When I first started using Calibre, I only wanted to use it as a file converter and metadata changer also. I just copied books to it from my personal files and let Calibre create its own set of files for each book. After I fixed the metadata and converted, I'd go to the Calibre folder and move the newly created files over to my personal filing system with all its folders and lovely sub-sub folders. You could do that too.

Then I found I hated the way the Sony software kept crashing and decided to use C exclusively. However, I still keep my personal files separate, and just ignore Calibre's copies. I haven't kept up the copying/moving to the personal files, but I know I could if I wanted to.

[Worldwalker]

Aside from using it for conversion -- for which, as several wise people have said, the best thing to do is just use the command-line tools to do batch conversion -- calibre is really outstanding for organizing your library.

The critical thing to remember is that calibre organizes books, not files.

The way you are doing it (and most of us did, pre-calibre) is using the filesystem to store metadata -- a very limited and restricted amount of metadata. But with calibre, instead of keeping your metadata in the filesystem (that is, putting your books in folders corresponding to your organizational system) you keep the metadata within calibre. So if, for example, you have a book of short fiction by several different authors, you don't have to worry about whether you filed it under Asmiov or Zelazny; calibre would find it with either one. If you have a book about ancient architecture that compares Egypt, Greece, and Rome, you might tag it "ancient world", "architecture", "Egypt", "Greece", and "Rome", and you wouldn't have to remember that you've got a book in your "Rome" folder that actually has stuff about Egypt and Greece in it too. With calibre, if I wanted to, let's say, pull up a list of all my alternate-history science fiction written by authors other than Harry Turtledove, I could do so with a few keystrokes (or clicks).

Incidentally, a "book" in calibre may be several different files, each in a different format. For instance, I have some O'Reilly pocket refs in both epub and pdf. I use the epubs on my 505, the pdfs on my desktop. Calibre treats both of them as the same book, and just delivers it in the proper format depending on device.

If all you need to do is convert files, the command line is probably the way to go. But try calibre for organizing your books. Forget that its private set of folders exists at all; if you need to get something out of them, export it. You might find that you like not having to remember things like which books are filed under the names of other authors.